Discourses of Rumi

146 V DISCOURSES OF RUMImy Lord, the sea would be spent before the Wordsof my Lord are spent.” Now, with fifty drams ofink one can copy the whole of this Koran.Therefore, the Koran is only a symbol of God’sknowledge and all the knowledge belonging toGod.An apothecary puts a pinch of medicine in apiece of paper. You wouldn’t say, “The whole ofthe apothecary’s shop is in this paper.” Thatwould be foolishness. After all, in the time ofMoses and Jesus and the other prophets, theKoran existed. God’s speech existed, but it wasnot in Arabic. I explained this to the Koranteacherin this way, but I could see that it made noimpression so I let him go.It is related that during the time of the Prophetanyone who knew one Sura by heart, or half aSura, was called a great person and pointed out,“They have a Sura by heart,” since in that daythey devoured the Koran. To devour a loaf ofbread, or two loafs, is certainly a great accomplishment.But people who put bread in theirmouths without chewing it and spit it out againcan devour thousands of tons in that way.